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Tuesday, January 13, 2015

16 Weeks Pregnant (with #3) And some house thoughts too

I don’t really know what to say about this last week.
I had two days where I got stuff done.
I’ve been itching to get back to working on the house SO BAD. But haven’t been up to much of anything. And that’s been starting to really get my down. I just miss being my normal self. I kinda feel like an invalid. And what’s crazy about it is, last pregnancy was NOTHING like this one. It’s hard not to feel bad about myself, as if I did something wrong to be so wimpy this time since I was so strong last time. (Strong meaning: ate like a health nut and worked out 5 days a week.) (Wimpy meaning: Eat whatever doesn’t sound horrible and puke-like, which isn’t health food. And workouts ruin my entire day by making me non-mobile and even more queasy.) (It’s hard to believe I am the same person.)

Anyway, that said, I did have two days this week where I was able to get some stuff done. One of the days I made my kitchen pretty. By doing dishes, clearing countertops, and adding a couple decorations so the room feels more “pinterest.”

Sorry, not the best pic, but it’s all I have right now.

And the other day I think I just did normal stuff like TONS of laundry and cleaning.
So those days were encouraging.
But then rest of the week I was kinda back to non-doing.

I was thinking last night about how each of my pregnancies (and births, and mothering those different children) has made me into more of a whole person.

My first pregnancy felt hard because I didn’t know how to be pregnant, and I didn’t know how to handle it all. You may have noticed my entrance into motherhood changed me quite a bit. And after I had my baby I felt like I did everything I ever said I wouldn’t.
I had decided beforehand my baby would never sleep in bed with me. I felt very sure about it for lots of reasons. I think that lasted about a month. My baby started co-sleeping as soon as I admitted to myself I wasn’t able to handle how much not being in the same bed as taking away everyone’s sleep. As soon as I said it out loud to Blake (worried he would hate the idea) he was 100% “Yeah let’s do it.” I was still worried it would ruin our marriage. Turns out, it was so good for all of us. And I was actually able to sleep. Jasmine has always been (and still is at 4 years old) a person who needs to be by people all the time. (She begged for her and her sister to share a room this past year because she claimed she was too lonely at night and she wouldn’t sleep. And she was proving her case true till we moved them together.) So anyway, once baby Jasmine was in our bed she stayed asleep WAY longer once she was next to us, and I had a WAY easier time going back to sleep if I nursed her in bed. It was a win for us. And Blake LOVED being next to her. (Take away co-sleeping judgmentalness.)
I also had to give her baby formula, which I didn’t want to do. But had to for 2 different medical reasons within our first month together. (Take away breast feeding judgmentalness.)
I also followed all sorts of good sleep advice correctly, and could not get my baby to sleep “right” for close to two years. And she had actually moved into her own bed by like 5 months or so, because she changed her mind from sleeping well in our bed to wanting to play all night. (Take away “I know how to make a baby sleep” judgmentalness.) (Also take away baby in own crib judgmentalness.)
I was nothing like I thought I would be as a mom once I was actually a mom.
Oh and did I tell you I was never going to have a c-section OR get thrush? I mean I just knew I wasn’t that person. (Yeah, both of those I checked off my list that year too.) (Take away a lot of general "I’m better than you”judgmentalness.)

My second pregnancy taught me how to be tough, I learned to eat awesome before and during. I learned how to get fit and worked out like my life depended on it. (Because I thought it did.) I learned more about birth than normal non-birth working people ever care to. I learned to believe in a lot of different things I never even knew about. And my labor and delivery and first few months of motherhood went so well. (This all took away a lot of “I’m a totally failure” judgmentalness I had towards myself.) But I was honestly glad that wasn’t my first experience with motherhood because I would have been a butt-hole to anyone who had a harder time with birth and newborns and breastfeeding because everything went so great.
Then at about 5 months my perfect sleeper stopped sleeping. Why? She learned to pull up in her bed. And after that she swore that standing was entirely more preferable than sleep and chose to forgo it. No sleep advice worked. None. I read it all. Tired it all. For long enough that it should have worked. But Ruby, is sweet and fun and happy, but when she makes up her mind, she has a will of steel. (This could prove interesting as we age together.) So from the age of 5 months on I said goodbye to “perfect life” of good sleep and easy mothering. And said hello to “Zombie life” because if one kid wasn’t crying at night the other one was (usually due to the other one waking them up.) I kinda hated life for half a year. I was so tired I couldn’t think, I just felt -- and I felt angry. I didn’t want to feel that way, but when you literally don’t sleep you basically have no control over your brain anymore. I didn’t take it out on my family (I don’t think) I just sat there feeling crabby all day, until the kids were in bed and I could vaguely feel my mind for a little while. And I had no babysitters, and no friends, family a full day’s car ride away...and oh yeah we had just found out we had tons of food allergies and pet allergies which made everything harder.(All this took away judgmentalness for mom’s who didn’t revel in every moment of motherhood -- because I really did the first time through with one baby... despite all the challenges we had I just kinda floated in glitter of “wow life is so beautiful and I have a beautiful little life here in my hands." But the second time around I was just too tired to see anything lead alone glitter. I was just surviving. And hence I stopped judging mommas who had to do that.)

After we moved, I was tired a lot because my second child also took 2 years to sleep through the night. (I never judge a momma who’s kid won’t sleep.. and well I secretly laugh when mommas claim they can control the world through sleep this or sleep that, because if the had enough kids, some day one of those kids would teach them their high horse can throw them whenever they want.)
AND I really didn’t sleep because I was painting while she was asleep -- meaning I never slept. But at least now they were older and would let me rest during the day. AND I was getting to do what I enjoy -- house decorating, painting, planning… So I was starting to feel like myself. The older they got the more I was feeling like myself, because they were giving me more introvert time to get my brain in place. And I was getting more and more done on the house. I was really starting to get into a groove. (Not a rut, because we weren’t anywhere near done yet.) But I felt like it was time to say yes to another baby. We all wanted another baby. Everyone else had been ready for months and months (maybe years?) but I needed time to get to a better stage. I felt like it was time to say, “I’m not really ready, but oh well, who’s ever really ready?” (Take away judgmentalness towards mommas who waver on having kids.)

And now this pregnancy is basically just incapacitating me. Which like I mentioned is hard for me to understand because I’ve been so capable for so long.

Anyway…all these experiences have taught me how I am not my good intentions. I am just what I do with what actually happens to me. And I can’t really judge anyone. Because I’ve been thrown off pretty much every high horse I’ve ever bought.

So in that way, I’m kinda grateful to this baby for kicking me off another horse I didn’t know I bought. I was pretty sure I’d be able to just conquer any pregnancy will a strong will and following good advice. But I know all the advice (don’t eat sugar, work out bla bla bla) and my body won’t agree with me. I used to think people just weren’t trying hard enough, if they said that. But this baby is teaching me not to judge again. And as un-fun as the experience is. I’m kinda glad I didn’t get to keep that high horse -- he was annoying anyway.
(If I get back in gear I will eat right and I will exercise -- but my heart won’t be a nut case over it.)

I think that’s just what kids do, teach you repeatedly over and over (kinda like getting hit in the head) not to judge stuff, because you don’t actually know what you are talking about when you are doing that.

She’s taking the picture ;)

And that’s what I have to say this week.
I don’t feel great. But oh well.

Belly Comparisons:

It’s cute to see Ruby acting just like Jasmine did (totally coincidentally) this week!

Baby #1

Blake and I started tossing out baby names this week, and I think that really helped me feel better emotionally. Before that I had been feeling super down. But talking names reminded me “Oh yeah I have a baby in there.” I forget sometimes and just think I’m super sick for no reason. But baby names were a nice reminder. (Whatever we pick is a surprise….so I can’t tell you what we talked about. ;) )

And in random other news…

Blake and I think we’ve finally landed on our “look” for the living room. As you saw in my last post my brain has been just hurting over what on earth to do with it. But I think we finally both fell in love with a look!
I’ll hold off on sharing the idea with you -- just in case we jinx it. I want to let us simmer on it a little longer first. But figuring that out (I think) brings me soo much emotional rest and joy. We both really like it, and really feel like it’s what the house would like too (I pretend houses are alive -- because they have personalities.) So that feels great.
(If it’s true, and IS the right look, it’s not a quick fix look. It might be a post baby kinda project to complete. But once I know that’s where we are headed, I can rest in the waiting because I know what we are waiting to do.)

I will share (With pictures!) one more house revelation I had this week though.

When we walked through the house, I pulled open this closet in the family room and laughed out loud.

I thought I’d be finding a normal closet behind the door...but instead I found this:

A flat weird space with shelves.

I’m guessing it’s where they used to store VHS tapes? But I really don’t know. It’s a very crazy space.

Initially I thought the only thing I could do with it is pull the shelves out (paint it) and hang up brooms and mops inside. I just couldn’t think of a single useful thing to do with the space other than that.

But suddenly this week (after a whole year of thinking any minute now we’d hang up some mops) I had a light bulb just go off.

An itsy-bitsy mudroom!

It’d be great because our stuff ends up over our kitchen chairs all the time, and this spot is right next to our garage door where we come in most the time. It’d be way more useful than a mop closet.

And pinterest to the rescue... yep -- it could look good -- great even!

Ours probably won’t be the spitting image of this, but the general idea is perfect.

It does run the risk of getting cluttered. But I think it will be really nice. I’m thinking it will mostly be for Blake’s coat (since he’s the one who leaves the house regularly.) It’d be nice for guests at times. And we’ll keep most our stuff in the real coat closet. (Which also needs a makeover eventually.)

Anyway. I was so pumped to think of something useful to do to this goofy spot.

Stuff WE DID GET DONE this week:

Finally got the girls pink beds done. Remember way back when the grass was alive, green, and not underneath snow, when I painted one of them pink outside?

Well, we wanted the beds to have side rails so the girls didn’t roll off. Me being pregnant (and sick) and Blake being busy making up for me not moving (like doing all the dishes, and cooking, and grocery shopping for me -- I know, isn’t he awesome?) while working, didn’t give us a lot of time to make those rails. So it took us till now.

But Blake built them and then he let the girls help him paint them. :)

I don’t want to talk about how fun it was washing pink paint out of the hair of girls who HATE washing their hair!

But they are so happy with their new beds!

They are making hearts on their heads.

Some day when we move Jasmine’s old toddler bed out of the room and I get the space clean, I’ll take better pics of the room for a before and after kinda thing. (I hope anyway.)

And a couple other cute pics just because…

Jasmine HAS to wave goodbye to anyone who is leaving our house. Especially Daddy on his way to work.

The other day she lined up all her friends to say goodbye too.

So cute.

And this week we started playing Candy Land -- she is IN LOVE with that!

2 comments:

Hi Lydia!!!!! I miss you! Anneliese decided to take over an hour to fall asleep so I've just caught up on your last few blog posts. Seeing you & the girls makes me miss you so much!!!! I loved the pics of you w J & R & the different weeks w your tummy! It was so fun to see the old pic of J when you were pregers w R! Love, Naomi